The Seventh Seal
by Bonehammer
Summary: The Second War is over, and it's time to move forward and think of rebuilding. But a new threat is looming as one of the heroes falls to the temptation of the Dark Arts. ON HIATUS
1. Spellbound

_Stop killing the dead._

_Shout no more, shout no longer,_

_If you still want to hear them,_

_If you hope not to perish._

The Seventh Seal

Prologue –

Spellbound

The island was deserted.

Had there been someone, they might have seen the rowboat emerge from the dense fog, inch by inch, as if working its way against something thicker than air. The prow finally reached the pebbly shore with a scratching sound of wood against stone and the lone sailor dismounted, dragged the small vessel ashore and set off up the steep path, leaning onto a staff that looked like it may have been a broomstick once.

It was not a leisure trek and the man had to stop midway, sitting on a flat boulder, clutching at the stitch in his side through his travelling cloak. From under the raised hood came a wheezy puffing. Finally, with a heavy sigh and a look at the darkening sky, he stepped up and and hurried on.

It had been a clear winter day, a rarity in this part of the world, and he might have enjoyed the sight if he hadn't been so concerned with reaching his destination before nightfall.

The old rock fortress was more than half demolished, but the blackened remnants still managed to convey an impression of unyielding harshness. The islands nearby were nestling places for seabirds, and the air resounded with their cries, but no creature of this world would chose to dwell here of its own accord. Even the seeds brought by the harsh west wind knew better than to take root on Azkaban.

The man could feel his pulse slow down, in spite of the exercise and the mounting anxiety, as the walls grew closer with each step – and taller, and darker. A greeting from the place, no doubt. He left the narrow trail winding among the boulders and went past the rows of graves lined along the formidable bastions.

He heard paws and talons scurrying hastily away from sight as he walked past the smashed gate. Invisible creatures that fed on despair had made their burrows beneath the crumpled walls and inside the empty cells where wicked men once slept, or rather tried to, under the sightless watch of even crueller wardens.

Rustling and shuffling from the darkest spots followed him along the drafty corridors as the creatures, some sporting red tufty manes, made for their burrows only to crawl out again as soon as he had passed. Only after he turned and whispered a spell that left two of them motionless on the floor, bleeding profusely, they desisted.

The finely sculpted feathers of the marble phoenix were darkening with soot, but not as much as the scales of the basilisk beneath its talons; a lengthy inscription recalled the battle that the monument celebrated. Like there was any need for it; as if one could possibly stumble onto the island by chance, unaware of its purpose and history.

The man did not need to read anything; he was versed in the legend. The core of the fortress had been the theatre for the last resistance for the defenders during the fight for Azkaban. During the last, frantic moments, the inmates, knowing the fate that awaited them if the fortress should fall, had fought alongside their keepers, with wands taken from the dead and the wounded. The bodies of the Aurors had been long consigned to their families, and only the cenotaph marked the place of their final sacrifice.

But the prisoners had been buried in the yard where they had fallen, in unmarked graves; only shallow heaps of rocks and bricks marked the place of their final rest. The Aurors had been driven by sense of duty, and when they were given a chance to surrender the fortress, their answer would have pleased the old Cambronne. The inmates died as they had lived, following their instincts; survival, sadism, spite.

The man wandered briefly around the court, then stopped before one of the barrows.

He donned gloves, flexing his fingers a couple times to assess their agility, then opened the battered musette bag hanging from his shoulder. With cautious movements, he pulled out from it a large old book, dirty and slashed, and bound with a strong iron lock. The leather-bound covers trembled like they were strugling to pry open.

The man's right hand dug deep into the sleeve of his cloak and extracted a tarnished wand, which he slid into the lock. Immediately the book soared in mid-air, opened with a cracking sound, its pages flipping so fast that they blew the hair away from the man's pale face. Finally they came to a halt and spread open, revealing depictions of skeletons marching. The parchment was glowing just enough that it was possible to make out the spidery writing.

Unfazed, the man bent forward and read in a low voice:

"_Flatus ex halitu …_"

He breathed onto the tome, his breath a blue cloud in the cold, his mouth forming the spell in wheezing whispers. As if the pages had suddenly frozen, a bluish mist formed on the parchment, then fell from the hovering book and onto the barrow in a grey cascade.

The man held out his left arm and pointed the wand at his wrist. With a ripping sound, the skin slashed open and blood trickled down the pages and onto the barrow.

"…_pulsus_ _ex sanguine…_"

The wand suddenly went ablaze in the man's hand, from ember red against his soiled leather gloves to blinding white at the tip, bathing the whole courtyard in an erratic orangey light.

"…_VITA EX IGNE! _"

The man's taut features were now glistening with sweat. At the edge of his perception, the inhabitants of the fortress held their breath – those who needed to breathe – as the light grew in intensity, roaring like a wild flame.

A name was finally uttered loudly, echoing against the far wall, and the man suddenly bent double and stabbed the ground at its feet with the blazing wand.

Silence swallowed the last echoes. The book slammed shut, its radiance extinguished, and fell to the ground. The darkness took over the walls of Azkaban again.

The man felt for the book, which covers were still twitching feebly, and put it back into his bag. Meanwhile, the stunted, parched grass on the barrow quivered; the earth underneath shook and a few pebbles rolled down the sides.

The shaking resumed and the ground cracked open, pulled apart like a heavy curtain by a pair of white, bony, mutilated hands. Slowly, painstakingly, a heap of flesh in human shape, covered with rot, rose and stood in front of the cloaked figure.

"What are you playing at… make it stop… now" the dead man spoke. His face was nothing but a ravaged mess with a gaping hole for a mouth, but the raspy voice that came out of him was loaded with hatred. "Filthy… unworthy… traitor…"

"_Silencio._"

A last pained groan was ended abruptly as it was leaving the ravaged mouth. The corpse turned halfway, towards the silent expanse of the courtyard and the cluttered barrows, and beckoned .

"Don't worry, they will get their share" the wizard promised, in a voice that sounded anything but reassuring. "After all, I don't expect to get it right the first time."

He turned and left without looking back. As if pulled by invisible chains, the dead jerked and staggered after him along the path to the shore.


	2. Family Plot

The 7th Seal

2 – Family Plot

Author's Note: This story was conceived before Deathly Hallows came out and will not be 100 canon compliant. In my take the war was longer, harsher, and I offed a lot more people than JKR did. Also, I seem to be unable to keep a beta around, so your corrections and suggestions are welcome.

The young man with the Auror badge and the pierced eyebrow rushed into the office and stopped dead on the doorway.

"Weasley, sir! This just came in… uh…"

He froze, unable to move or utter a word, stumped by the presence of an authority in the cramped, chaotic office. The Undersecretary for the Minister of Magic turned and watched him coolly through gold-rimmed glasses.

"This is a confidential meeting," he said. "Unless you have clearance, I'd suggest you retire."

"Never mind, Ballywhistle," the other said, absently swishing his wand; the rolled parchment flew from the young Auror's hands across the small room and into his outstretched palm. "Thank you."

That seemed to unclench the young Auror. "N-nice catch, sir" he said with a shy smile, and withdrew.

Chief Weasley's smile became forced as he turned to face his interlocutor. "You were saying?" he asked, returning to the discussion at hand.

"As I was saying, I had a meeting with the Minister yesterday, and we've discussed matters involving, among others, this department. From a strategic point of view, it's high time we redistribute resources within the Ministry. There are other services in dire need of personnel and funds, and we are forced to downsize the Auror department."

"I see" Weasley replied, putting all his disgust in the two syllables. "And which 'services' are we talking about here? The Office for Cauldron Bottom Thickness Assessment? What do you think people value more, P… _Sir_? Substandard scales from Azerbaijan… "

The Undersecretary blinked and shifted position on the chair. It was designed for hosting uncooperative witnesses, not visiting authorities, and it was uncomfortable and rickety.

"It's good to see you're up to date on the matter," he rebated. "You know people would do anything for wizarding durables. We're being deluged with counterfeit items ranging from the shoddy to the downright dangerous. There's..."

"_Aurors_ can look into black market issues as well," the Head Auror stated drily. "And quill pushers armed with capilers won't take on a gang of Snatchers, no matter how many times they outnumber them."

"No need to be snide. A Department doesn't have to be worthless only because its members aren't on the _Daily Prophet _every other week."

Chief Weasley's hand balled to a fist. "I'm fighting to keep this department free while the Minister accepts bribes left, right and center! Where are those foreign investors he always talks about?"

"Pipe down, for the love of Merlin," the Ministry hissed. "How naïve can you be? What can he say, 'we'll be bankrupt by next Tuesday unless you lend me some more money'? The goblins have us by the balls enough as it is."

"So some fat shark is donating a big bag of money to boost the economy, and the Ministry makes sure that I don't go hungry and that there are never enough resources to do a half-decent job." The hand that had been clenched tight had another paroxism. "Do I have to remind you it's exactly how we had a second war?"

"Now see here. I see your point, I really do. But you can't want to send half of the population to Az… to prison! Everyone made a slip at a point or other."

If looks could charm, the glare that Weasley gave to his superior would be an Unforgivable. The Minister's next deliver came out stammering.

"I know this may sound ungrateful, what with the losses that... but I assure you that the Aurors's contribution – your sacrifices – will never be forgotten. But it is time to move on and think of rebuilding, not retaliating."

"My boys can't just 'move on'. This is _their life!_ They've been doing unpaid overtime since the war. They've given up friends, given up family, all to their commitment, and the Ministry 'thank you' is a kick in the ass?! The shirkers get the sweetener and my boys get the sack!"

"No one will be "getting the sack", Ron. You have my word. The people will be given other assignments. Not as thrilling, but more useful in times of peace. A small force will be maintained, of course, for trivial business."

"Trivial? _TRIVIAL_?" The use of that word, or maybe his name, was the final straw. Ronald Weasley took the dossier that was on top of his IN tray and threw it into his brother's lap. The dossier opened and pictures flew everywhere. Some of them landed face-up and Percy gave a snarl of disgust.

"What the…"

"They've reopened 's moonstone cave in Flagley and found out someone's been using it as a mass grave," Ron explained, his voice harsh. "Two dozen bodies so far, and I barely have enough men to give those poor people a _name_, let alone find out who did it."

"I'm sorry, brother. This is a final decision," Percy said, standing up and picking up his parchments and folders. "I've vouched for you, but if you keep this attitude I won't be able to help you." 

"You think you're _helping_ me?" Ron yelled, rising to his full height. "_You call this fucking __**helping **__me?_"

People were staring at the two brothers from the corridor window by this time, and that gave Ron pause. He stood, shaking with suppressed energy, his face red.

"You must've learned anger management from Harry," Percy commented.

"My anger management is _excellent_ or your head would be a pumpkin. Now get out. _OUT_!"

The Undersecretary left in a rush, and Chief Weasley sat down again. His temples were pounding.

_This is it,_ he mused, as a strange feeling of aching warmth started within him. He felt like a heavy robe had just slid from his shoulders, and he acknowledged, sitting at his desk in the Auror Department, that the war was over. Heroes were no longer in demand, and his chance at becoming one had slipped him by.

"Come out, Ernie," he sighed. "I know you were eavesdropping."

Ernie McMillan came out of the file cabinet and tried to recover his dignity by adjusting the collar of his robe. 

"I really don't know what possessed the Hat to sort your brother in Gryffindor, Ron. Should've made a new House… the Toadsnot or something."

Ron gave a nonplussed sort of shrug and Ernie spoke again.

"So, this is it, eh?"

"It's been in the air for a while, ever since I was moved to this rathole of an office."

"Well, I suppose it's time for me to move on, too… I could take up haunting, find myself a decent mansion…" he said, trying to sound funny.

Ernie McMillan held the unenviable record of being the only wizard to ever receive a posthumous Order of Merlin – and yet take part in the ceremony. He was out in the forest gathering fluxweed, when he had stumbled upon a powwow of Death Eaters, who had Avada Kedavra'd him on the spot. That had proved an unwise move, as within an hour, his ghost had led a platoon of Aurors onto the unsuspecting Death Eaters, not one of which had escaped. Ernie had become a sort of mascot in the Department, which hosted many of his Hogwarts fellows; but many familiar faces had gone forever during the war, and now the last ones would scatter shortly.

After the ghost left, Ron leaned back against the armchair and sat there for a while, sipping a Summoned tea and staring at the board clustered with notes and threatening mugshots.

It had taken a while for him to finally see the writings on the wall. All the people who had spent the war in a grey zone, not killing on Voldemort's order nor fighting against him, all the people who had bargained for their safety with the Death Eaters, were pressing on the Ministry from within and without. Small wonder Harry had wanted out. What with Fudge and Scrimgeour, he had been in the front seat from the start; he had seen this coming.

The news had been heavy with consequences, and it took a while before he remembered the roll that Ballywhistle had been so eager to give him. Taking his time, he donned his lunette glasses, unrolled the parchment and started reading.

A second later he jumped up, dropping hot tea in his lap and making the secretaries outside wince.

"Merlin's _bollocks_!"

He grabbed a cloak, a hat, and with a loud crack, he Disapparated.


	3. The Rear Window

The Seventh Seal, Part 3 –

The Rear Window

The boys at the scene were young, end-of-the war recruits: lacking the basics - they didn't even check him for Imperius or Polyjuice - and obsequious to the point of being pathetic.

"This way, Sir. Mind the barriers, Sir. We were waiting for you, Sir."

"I was… held up… at the Ministry," Ron explained, feeling foolish, to his escort. "So… is it really that big?"

Not that he really needed to ask; everywhere he looked there was a wizard or a witch assessing, gauging, measuring. He followed the freshmen to the entrance.

"This way, Sir."

"Careful, Sir."

"There's a Sanction Seal over the entrance, Sir."

The last warning almost came too late. He stepped into an invisible barrier, like cobwebs against his face, and his insides seemed to melt into liquid ice. He looked around, as if expecting the web's spinner to attack him, but no spider was in sight and he rallied up. It was just the Sanction Seal at work; he pulled out his wand, cleared his throat, and spoke.

"Ronald Weasley, Head of Auror Office, demands passage."

The barrier dissolved and he stepped into the house.

"We're here, Sir. The basement."

Trying not to touch the railing, but not trusting his bad knee, he took his time with the stairs. He was halfway down when the sweet and stinging stench of decay hit his nostrils like something solid and his mouth filled with too much saliva.

"Merlin's beard, how can you boys stand the smell?"

One of the "boys", a short, weedy man with a long gloomy face and grizzled hair, tapped at something the size of a walnut and bright green, stuck up his nose. "Stench Eater, Sir. Comes from the Wheezes. There's one in every Jumbo pack of Philty Phials."

"Sounds handy. Got a spare one?"

They did. The younger Auror showed Ron how to don the contraption, which pinched his nose amicably and burst out in what passed for pig-Parseltongue: _Ass stinky ass Salazsar'ss ssockss!_

The sound brought back bad memories, and he asked gravely: "How did you find out?"

"A bout of luck, sir. A Floo commuter took the wrong turn."

"The house has been abandoned for over a decade," the other Auror explained. "Mixed-blood family… they moved to the continent at the height of the war, we're still trying to contact them."

"The git's been sloppy… didn't check whether the fireplace was still connected," said the younger Auror with a grin.

"However, he wasn't sloppy with the packing up. The place's been cleared to the last cockroach."

"I see," he commented. "Not that we cannot figure out what was going on anyway. Report to me later, boys."

The grizzled Auror turned his nose and nodded.

Ron moved to the next room, where two old hands of the Psychometry office, Kolosimo and Gaddis, were busy taking measurements. They knew Weasley too well to greet him with anything more formal than a quick wave between their passes.

"I don't get this bloke," Auror Kolosimo broke out. "What's wrong with _wallpaper_?"

The three men shared a nervous laugh. Spidery, irregular writing crawled on every surface of every room, like the house had been Transfigured halfway into a runestone. The walls wavered in the unsteady light that came from the fireplace, and Ronald soon found out that every time he tried to fixate his sight on a rune, its neighbours seemed to writhe and whirl like wounded snakes. He ran a hand through the sparse hair on his forehead, feeling the skin underneath beaded with cold sweat. They were facing no amateur.

"Peter, you took Ancient Runes. What's the meaning of all this scrabbling?"

"A sort of quenching system, from the look of it... it has to be. There's so much Dark magic in here, this place would set detectors off scale for miles. I need to check with the books to be sure."

A short, rotund witch with unkept hair and a bad complexion was stuffing candles and prisms into a handbag, and acknowledged his presence with a quick wave.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Weasley."

The greeting was somewhat forced and Ron's response was a formal, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Windham."

Their rapport was still touch-and-go after a difficult start right from the interview: Seer Ricarda Windham had applied for a job at the Auror Office only to see his would-be superior collapse in fits of laughter over her CV. However, she did have the Sight, and was the more square, down-to-earth person Ron had ever met apart from Muggles. Given the kind of performances she subjected herself to, it was probably do or die.

"I'm afraid that my Reading of the room brought up very little," she offered. "You'll have to rely on the witness." Her nose wrinkled as she said that, for some reason.

"You couldn't Read the room?" Ronald asked, puzzled. Ricarda's gift was uncommon, and handier than one might think: she didn't See the future, but the past, and being the latter a preordained thing, she had never been proven wrong.

"Our mysterious friend took his precautions. This is all I could summon."

She put a small crystal globe in his hand. Ron stared at it, but it was like full of fog, and his lips curled involuntarily, thinking of hours spent in a stifling loft, pretending to See into patterns of tea leaves…

Ricarda smacked her lips in disappointment and tapped the globe with her wand. 

"_Lude_!"

The fog coalesced into a figure: a man in a hooded cloak, standing with arms akimbo and facing away from him.

"Oh. Now I can see something… but it's…"

As if the voice had startled it, the figure crouched on all fours, as the cloak slid onto the floor…

…revealing a face that had no human feature, with golden flecked eyes gleaming above a hedge of yellow fangs. It jumped, with a fearsome roar, filling his visual field, and something green and scaly flickered for an instant in the sphere…

Ron gave a great yelp and jumped back; he hit something hard and his sight filled with stars. He was suddenly standing in the room again, with the crystal ball clutched in his sweaty hand and a sharp pain in the back of his head where it had banged against the wall. The Aurors were smiling nervously, as if they had undergone the same procedure earlier with similar results.

Seer Wyndham took the ball from his hand as if seeing people recoil into walls was an everyday feature of her work.

"A Chimaera." Ron swallowed and straightened up, trying to get his bearings. 

Seer Windham was impressed. "Good eyesight, Weasley. It took me three passes to figure that out. I…"

From the upper floors came alarmed screams and sound of spells.

"Watch out!"

"Damn!_Glacious! Glacious!_"

"More, more here! _Glacious! Aguamenti!_"

Ron ran up the stairs three steps at a time and when reached the ground floor his heart was throbbing in time with his knee. The other Aurors were standing in a circle, looking nervously at the corners, and the residual magic made his sparse hair stand up on end.

"What happened?"

"Ashwinders eggs, sir. It's a damn infestation. They're already starting to go off"

Ron's jaw dropped. The beasts must've laid their eggs all around the place by now… in a _wooden_ house…

"What are you waiting for?" he yelled. "SCRAM!"

As if to help them make up their mind, a flicker of flames burst suddenly up from under the floorboards. The Aurors turned and scarpered for the door; Ron muttered something foul under his breath, remembered everything the instructors had told him about never Apparating to an unknown place, and promptly ignored it. He reached the basement with a loud crack.

"The place is on fire! Get out immediately!"

Kolosimo and Gaddis vanished immediately with a sound like a double-barrelled thunder; Ron caught Seer Wyndham's wrist and Apparated in turn.

As they appeared on the front lawn, Ron's knee gave under and he stumbled, dragging Wyndham down with him. In that precise moment, the entire house caught fire like a match.

Seer Wyndham let out an anguished cry.

"The _evidence_! Weasley, I didn't…"

But Ron just fished the little sphere out of his robes and showed it to her with a smug grin; the Chimera bared its teeth at him from within the confines of its crystal prison. He smiled back at the creature, and pocketed the ball again.


End file.
